Foreign
by Veronica Mignon
Summary: Technophobic Ogami Yugo gains an "expired child" in his care and doesn't realize that the world will be turned for the worst. AU, names of chapters are songs by Marc Bolan.
1. Ballrooms of Mars

Foreign  
Chapter 1: Ballrooms of Mars  
Life was emulated through thousands of wires that connected the mother earth to her respective elements, raging across the land and destroying that which she had given to the humans who had not played their subservient role. It was the game of destruction and decadence that she played, moving her pawn on the lines of the knight and destroying all of what used to be a regularly visited town with her storming tsunami. Her priest ravaged the good farm land with terrible soil and rain to wash out all of the vegetation.  
The world had been at her revenge for millions of years, taking and giving, taking and giving. She pulled the strings on the back of her marionettes that swayed viciously in the dominating wind. She who brought the world to a stop with one wave of a hand and the earthquakes that followed her backhand.  
Still man rebuilt his lodgings. It was a war between nature and mankind. Nature would destroy the few inches that humans and gained and then humans would regain those few lost qualities. What lived in between the lines was something that nature and mankind wanted nothing to do with.  
Those that lived between the lines had been strange creatures that were not accepted in human terms, at the age of fifteen turning into a strange being, free of care or worry, only contained to this world by a fluke of whether they kept their original mind or not. These were the children who were taken in and, eventually, mutilated for what they represented: free will, anarchy, chaos, no law.  
Is law truly important?  
No, spoke the flaming crimson liquid that pulsated through a tube and into three tanks all held separate. Science was not affected by law in any way possible. This was the utmost highest rank and nobody could do anything about it, whether they were authority or not. Science always got away, like the Bonny and Clyde of jobs.  
This is what kept a child from growing up into a normal person who went to college and earned a degree: the strange appearances from birth, the swift look in their eyes that held more vitriolic passions than innocence, and that constant reminder of the thing they would become in their prime age. Life was shut down for these children.  
Not all children can get away. Labs are protected by five Carriers, men who have the strength of a bear and wear huge black coats for intimidation. Not only are there Carriers, but there is Nidhogg, the vicious beast that chews at the original tree of live, who searches for the lost children and when finding them, usually tears them to shreds. Even beyond Nidhogg is the ever present fear of the other children who have escaped and will find other children and sell them. The populace does nothing against this.  
Thus, it was incredibly hard to believe that one child had actually broken his air-tight glass cage and spent his time wisely, stabbing the Carriers with a shard of glass to death. He struck fiercely, as if he were taking back all of his years in those deaths. All that mattered was that the Carriers were dead and the one thought that was spawned by death was always freedom. This was Freedom, which was out into the ever-present world that shunned the children and almost seemed like a paradise; if you thought about it in a haunting way, that is.  
Being able to discard the bodies was almost like he was being awarded with a trophy of some sort. He didn't have to make a speech which was more relieving. He grabbed two of the large black coats and wrapped them around him and sat in silence to gain some warmth back. It wasn't everyday that you killed two Carriers, nor was it everyday that you got more to wear than a shirt and jeans in the deafening snow.  
Finally, the child reclaimed his equilibrium and took a long time walking to the golden door of freedom. Two coats were heavy and the persistent thought of leaving them behind nagged at his conscious brain. But he would freeze to death outside without them. That's how they killed almost all of the escapees. Luckily, the killing hadn't reached his brain yet. The child did not know that his white shirt had been stained velvet red from the brutal grasp of freedom. He felt as if he were five minutes behind himself.  
Today was Sunday. Sunday is the day when all of the scientists take the day off. Therefore, I am home free for the rest of the trip, if I have someplace to go. It was all figured out in his head, even if he couldn't completely register all that had gone around him. One of the first to actually escape.  
He opened the door to the outside world and took in a few breaths of the new life that awaited him outside.  
Life.  
Precious, alluring life.  
How you glitter among your pretty little stars.  
How you can kill such beautiful young things.  
**  
It was a rather interesting apartment. Not one of those new ones that held almost every single technological advance that had ever come to light since the days of the humans. There were only three rooms inside, a reclining room, bedroom, and kitchen. It was all the man really needed. He had lived by himself since he was sixteen and had learned to deal with it.  
Yes, the howling wind during winter bothered him when he was all alone. Sometimes he did wish for a companion, but if life was going to leave him to depend on only one person, he knew that it would have to be the soul that sat inside of his own body. If he ever worried about loneliness, he could always reminisce about the days with his father. When he was alone, his father would tell him stories until he fell asleep. Then he wasn't alone.  
The new apartments were covered with technology that broke apart each day and the repair lines were always bugged. If you ever did get a repair man in, he'd only make the damage worse. They worked this way. It was the logic of corporations. Once the repair man made it worse, then you had to call the company and the company would offer a man worth more money than you earned in a week. The new and more expensive repair man would push one button and fix everything.  
Ogami Yugo was more than intimidated by technology; he didn't trust it, period. He couldn't stand the fact that a machine made by man was doing everything for him, poisoning his food, creating a mess, and the AC turning automatically off when the heat outside got the worst. It was always a wonderful vision to see a humble apartment made like the old houses used to be made, back in the twentieth century.  
"Is it all right?" the seller asked in a timid voice. He really wanted to get rid of this wonderful apartment that he probably thought was a dump. He had asked that question millions of times afterward and before the whole selling process. The seller was a man with trembling hands and a neurotic face that implied his own success with the technology of this future world.  
Yugo nodded quickly, wishing desperately that the man would leave him in peace for once. He had an important phone call to make and he knew that if he spent anymore time with this flake then he'd miss her and probably never hear from her again.  
"I really wanted to make it nice and I tidied it up and-"  
"Leave. Now." He didn't want to sound so primitive, but he wanted this man out with haste. If he was going to stay in the apartment and twiddle his fingers, than Yugo was inclined to tear him up on the spot.  
Without a word, the nervous man was out. He finally got the point, it seemed.  
Yugo didn't spend another second thinking about him and grabbed the phone off of the office desk next to the red couch. He pressed the memorized numbers and was relieved to hear the alluring sound of a dial tone. Not that annoying buzz of the machine reading back the numbers you had already pressed.  
"Hello?" he asked when he heard the sounds of children playing in the background.  
"Why did you leave?" It was her. She had demanded an answer from him and he couldn't simply hang up and hope never to hear from her ever again. It wasn't in his nature to leave people hanging. He had to come up with some stupid answer.  
"I'm not a people person, Alice. There are too many kids in that area. It was making me nervous. I had to get out of there. I had to get away from all of the people who lived there, I got bored of them. They were happy neighbors. I was offered this apartment and when I took one look at it, I felt as if I needed to live here. I'm sorry."  
"You were my only childhood friend." Alice sounded as if she were about to cry with the last impending tears that were left between them. "You were the only person I could love."  
"We all remember how that turned out", Yugo answered, somewhat sarcastically. "Just because we split. you know, went our own ways. doesn't mean we're not friends anymore. I can still check up on my little sister, right?"  
Her chuckle sounded more than relieved; Alice sounded as if she had been refreshed with a new life. "Of course you can. I was waiting for you to ask that. So, I guess you'll come and visit from now on?"  
"If I have your okay then maybe I will."  
"You have my permission." With that, she hung up.  
He could now put the phone down and plop into his new couch with a sigh of content. It wasn't just the idea of this twisted confession but more of a way of making up to the one girl who had been one of the sweetest he had ever known. Youth had skewered his precepts of friendship and he actually believed they could make it as a couple, but his own blood proved him wrong.  
Yugo wasn't a person of habit, but more of necessity. It was necessary to make up to Alice to go on with life. It didn't mean that he actually was going to visit her; it just meant that he had made up to her. It was necessary to live alone for a while to find where his threads were placed in the weavings of fate.  
The outside smelled rather nice. It was a secluded apartment. not truly in an apartment complex, but isolated and so small that it couldn't be considered a house. He was compelled to see what his "backyard" was like. His view from the front was only of the huge cities created by man's new, breathing mechanical life form.  
His view from the back was anything but technology.  
A step outside created the pleasing sound of the crunching snow under a wet boot. Relief from the world that existed beyond his back could be seen in the crooked smirk that dominated his face. Yugo was never good at smiling impulsively.  
He inspected the outskirts of his own yards. They led far away, into an old sky that had survived repetitive abuse from the reckless humans. There was a solitary tree, in the middle of the evanescent drizzling snow and that's where the boy was.  
It appeared almost natural at first. Yugo had mistaken it for a hole in the tree, for it was so small. But a child it was. Short dark brown and hair with yellow eyes all appeared to seem normal, were it not for the double black coats that he wore and the barcode on his left cheek. Blood trickled down a youthful forehead and a slim cut had been made in his right cheek, gushing out blood for such a small little insignificant cut.  
The child smiled, as if he had been expecting Yugo all day long. He walked up casually but obviously in some pain. He stopped right in front of Yugo and smiled honestly. "About time you came around here", he spoke coldly.  
"What. What are you doing here?" It was the only sensible question that would come out of his mouth.  
The child merely laid his head on Yugo's chest and whispered, "Carry me."  
**  
He felt terrible for actually taking the child in. This meant that he wasn't going to live his life in the mollifying embrace of a radiant apartment that spent her winters curing those with insatiable pasts.  
Yugo had carried the child into his apartment and sat him on the couch. He had spent hours watching and taking in the appearance of a child yet to age into the climatic advances of life. He was guessing silently that the child had to be either thirteen or fourteen. Somewhere around there.  
Underneath the huge black coats was a frail child with barely enough meat to cover his bones. It seemed rather stupid or rather cruel of a parent to send their child out into the cold with just a white shirt and jeans.  
The child woke up not because of the ardent flame that Yugo had started in the chimney place but because of the time he had spent inside of himself, healing his internal wounds. Staring now took place between child and adult. The throne of time took an utterly long pause, allowing the two to look at each other as if they were in some zoo made for human beings.  
"What were you doing around my house?" He wasn't going to allow time for the child to charm his heart.  
The child barely recognized the look of adamant fear inside his retinas and didn't spend time to adjust his eyes. "Give me a second to collect my bearings, would you?" The child spoke without innocence marring his words. It almost sounded cynical in its own way.  
"What were you doing around my house?" Yugo shouted louder than before. Collect his bearings, my ass.  
The child didn't answer and took his time, putting his legs over the couch, sitting up straight, and smiling rather unpleasantly. "I expired."  
"You what?"  
"I expired. You don't know anything about the expired children, do you? Of course you don't. If you did you would have given me a room and fed me immediately, because everyone knows that if you're not nice to me you'll get bad luck."  
"I may not know much about technology, but I can smell a trick where it comes from. I'm not giving you anything unless you give me something first. You either a. bring me something nice or you b. give me information like what is your name and where did you come from."  
There was a vitriolic glare in the boy's retinas, searing through Yugo's old battered shield. Yugo did not want to spend the rest of his life staring in those cold eyes. He managed for now, pretending to really look into the abyss of pupils that shrouded this child. It didn't take long for the child to break.  
"An expired child is one who lives in the orphanage and is sold over to science until their expiration date is met. Then the child is killed before they can change. There, you got your damn explanation. Now tell me what you were doing around this house."  
"I live here! Well. I've lived here for an hour, but I still live here. What were you doing around my house?"  
"I escaped and got over here. Long description, right? This was probably the only place I could stay, anyway. I'm not fond of technology and once I saw your little house here, all quaint and humble-like, I decided 'that's the place I'm going to go to.' So, using my precious little mind-"  
"You're getting blood all over my couch!"  
"It's not my blood so I wouldn't worry over it, since you care so much about me! Look, are you going to be nice about this or do I have to scream and yell at you like a little child? I'm lost and I have no family. I've got nowhere to go. If you kick me out and I die, it'll all be your fault." The last sentence had been spoken with a sepulchral tone that endeared Yugo to look outside the window and not meet the child's eyes.  
"Why should I care whether you live or not?"  
"I had this friend back at the labs. I promised her that I would help her out. And now she's waiting for me. If I'm dead, she'll wait for me until they eventually kill her and she'll think that I meant to kill her when only my best concerns were out for her."  
"Oh, so you've got a girl-"  
"NO!" For a minute, Yugo could almost believe this child was a murderer, the glaring prospect of a choleric mind that was just out to destroy any who passed the line of fire circling his mind. "She and I. we're just friends. Nothing more than that. She's my friend and I want to protect her. Wouldn't you want to protect someone who you cared about; who wasn't a love interest, but just was. was a part of you?"  
A wave of silence passed through discreetly. Yugo's eyes stayed glued to the window like a moth to a light. He was obviously taking deep consideration on some decision that would plan the future life of the child. It would bring out the new life in which he could live in or it would be the plain death that awaited this child outside of Yugo's home.  
"Since you're bleeding all over it, you'll live on that couch. I'll get you a blanket and a pillow, but don't get too comfortable. If somebody wants you, I'm giving you to them. At night, you don't bug me, period. You sleep soundly if you want to stay. You got that?"  
"Yeah." The child reclined on the couch and could finally actually relax. "I have one question: What are you going to name me?"  
"What? You need a name now?"  
"They called all of us child at the labs. We were child one, child two, child three. Then they got to child two the second and crap. So will you name me?"  
"If you're not gone in two days, I'll name you. Is that clear?"  
"Clear. I've got another question." Yugo rolled his eyes and wondered what the child could possibly want to know now. He had asked for one question. Now he wanted another. The next thing Yugo knew, he would ask for another and another and another. Before he knew it, he would be revealing his life story to this child.  
"What am I going to call you?" 


	2. No more Marc Bolan song titles

Foreign  
  
A/N: Eugh. . . Just reading the first chapter over again made me shiver. It's been a long time since I wrote chapter one and then worked on chapter two. Once I started reading chapter two, I realized what a piece of junk it was and decided to write a different chapter two. Suffice to say, Alice is not going to be a major character in this story anymore nor is the weasel zoanthrope I had planned a while back. I must apologize for the first chapter. In my youth, I liked to "experiment" with my writing and the effects were as bad as Neil Young's techno and rockabilly albums. More babbling: How on earth do you use the career characters in the other modes in BR4? And a little discovery I made when playing BR4. . . Kenji with his hair down looks a lot like Sasarai and Luc (Before Suikoden 3 for Luc, of course). So then, on with the story.  
  
Chapter 2: No more Marc Bolan song titles  
  
Among the night, there was a feeling of complete obscurity. Yugo had to admit, there was a child sleeping on his couch, covered in blood and without a name. His plans had not worked out as he would have liked. In fact, they had been completely ruined. Yugo had expected to live as a hermit in his little cozy house. No one to hold a promise to, no one to take care of but himself. It seemed like a strange dream. Eventually, he had to wake up and face reality: there is just no way to live by yourself. Fate has a way of totally screwing that up.  
  
So he had a one-minded quiet child who feigned innocence in his house. At least that was Yugo's impression on the child after spending four hours telling the kid that he couldn't have another blanket. It's not like it was the end of the world. Well. . . The blanket incident had shown Yugo that even children can be two-faced. Frankly, he was impressed with the child's age. He didn't know many fourteen-year-olds who could stand being covered in blood through the whole night.  
  
In those awkward four hours, Yugo had grown somewhat of a respect for the child. The boy didn't angst over his ordeals as the kids in the orphanage had. He didn't cling onto Yugo's leg for support nor did he ask questions about Yugo's life. His eyes retained a winsome glaze while he searched the room for clues to Yugo's past. It was almost as if he were treating the older man's life like a game, putting puzzle pieces together and inferring what he thought to be truth. His eyes were caught on a picture Yugo kept by his phone. Mostly on that little table, there were pictures of friends he had known from the orphanage but the child's eyes had been caught by one in particular.  
  
"That's Alice", Yugo explained. It was the only remedy for the child's curiosity; he obviously couldn't hide it. Curiosity killed the cat but Yugo couldn't exactly pin a cat-like attitude onto the child's sharp rodent features. He had an angular face, one that Yugo couldn't compare to the soft and puffy cheeks of a cat. "She's a friend of mine. We grew up together, sort of like you and your little friend."  
  
"She's not my girlfriend. . ." the child growled.  
  
"I didn't say she was. And before you say anything, Alice is not my girlfriend either."  
  
The child's curiosity subsided and he took more of an interest in his surroundings. He inspected Yugo's couch, Yugo's walls and Yugo's phone, expecting some surprise out of the normal decor. He settled for a sigh and a glare in Yugo's direction.  
  
"I asked you a question earlier", the child uttered under nearly closed lips. "I asked what should I call you and you never answered me. Do you not have a name too? Am I supposed to think of a name for you in two days? Am I-"  
  
"My name's Yugo and that's all you need to know. If you stay longer than two days than maybe I'll tell you a bit more. . . but other than that you aren't welcome to information regarding myself or my life." Yugo hadn't been around children for such a long time that he almost completely missed the pout expressed on the canvas of the child's face.  
  
They sat in silence for nearly an hour. It wasn't as if Yugo suffered over the silence. He greeted it proudly, hoping there would be more time for silent moments. Yet with children, there were no silent moments. Yugo loved children, especially when they smiled and laughed. He just couldn't stand teenagers who wanted to be adults way too early in life. Yugo had been a teenager once and it only happened once. It wasn't going to come back to him even if he had wasted it flirting with a girl he now considered his sister. Then again, the word "wasting" was very powerful. He didn't completely hate his teenage life. There had been some good with the bad and one of the good had been a pact with Alice that if he were ever in trouble she would come to his aid and vise versa. Alice had been one of the first friends he could consider a best friend.  
  
Without really thinking, Yugo grabbed his phone and dialed a number he had to memorize ever since Alice caught the flu three years ago.  
  
"What are you doing?" the child questioned.  
  
"Calling the doctor's office. You'll get your shots and then I can send you away to school. You won't get bothered over there and I won't have to deal with you anymore. As long as you're on school grounds, they can't touch you."  
  
"But. . . I thought that schools were where you were watched on all day long like big brother and you didn't have any rights to your own opinion or what you wanted to say. He told me that high school was terrible, that I would be stuck in a flock of idiots."  
  
Slowly, Yugo placed the phone on the small coffee table and eyed the child suspiciously. "Who is 'he'?"  
  
"You aren't welcome to information regarding myself or my life."  
  
Yugo growled loudly enough that the child scooted further back into the old dingy couch. "Look kid, I'd love to help you get out of this little mess you're in, trust me on that. And in order for me to help you, you have to help me. You have to give back in order for me to find a way to allow you to live without. . . whatever it was that you were in. Expired children. . . I thought I had heard everything."  
  
"What. . . what are the schools really like?" The child's eyes were wide with interest.  
  
"They're a lot bigger than you think they are but most of them are going bankrupt or have closed down due to financial issues. There are dorms, I have heard, on the school grounds and they provide you with everything you need for a certain price. You can get books and you can study in a nice quiet place. . . It's really pretty nice. I stopped going to school when I was nineteen so they might have changed. But for you", Yugo waved his hand in the air, "they'll protect you over there. As long as you promise to do your work and pay every bill, the school will protect you from anyone or anything outside of school walls."  
  
"Do they wear uniforms?"  
  
"Yes but if you tell them about your situation then maybe they'll let you off on a waver."  
  
The child looked as though a blow had been hit to his shoulder. He recoiled quickly, eyes of glass soon returning to a young shrewd face. "Why do you want to help me? What's in it for you?"  
  
"A clean couch all mine again." Yugo had grown up with many different teenagers. Most of them had often yelled and screamed at him for the comment he had just made. More than often, they would give Yugo the silent treatment. But this child was so much different from any of the other teenagers Yugo had known. The child held his head back and laughed, emanating warmth and life just from one blissful vocal chord. Yugo had to smile.  
  
Listening more to the jovial vocal music bounding upon his humble abode, Yugo picked up the phone and dialed the doctor again, this time staying on the phone. He kept his eyes on the child as he spoke to a young nurse, booking an appointment for two days into the future. He cautiously set the phone down and approached the small child.  
  
"You're going in two days from now. They're going to give you a few shots. . . It's your basic physical." The word physical almost seemed like an alien to the child. He slanted his brows and tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Let's see here. . . They weigh you in, they take your height, they give you some shots, they give you a blood test, they take your temperature. . . you get the point, right?"  
  
"The gist of it. Are you going to sleep now?"  
  
"Maybe. Why do you ask?"  
  
The child shrugged innocently. Yugo could guess that innocence was one of the child's best disguises. He wasn't one to brag himself. Alice had caught him many times with his hand caught in the cookie jar and he could never lie to her hard accusing expression of malcontent. Vaguely, he felt an itch at his ear, mostly from bad memories. Not truly bad memories but major pain that he felt after Alice had decided that he was doing something bad.  
  
"Good night", he muttered more out of necessity than care.  
  
Yugo left the child alone on the couch. The kid reminded him of all the times Yugo had spent in the orphanage. Yugo also feared spending time with a child who had no father figure to speak of. It awakened some strange paternal instinct inside of him, locked away long ago when he decided he would never have a spouse or children for that matter. Once again, fate was coming to slap him in the face and he knew it. There was a pure reason why this child was with him. Yugo couldn't answer it himself, but there was a true and gut feeling that he was supposed to have this child in his house, that he was supposed to name him. . . and even worse, he felt as though he would keep this child. He didn't need a child to think about. It was bad enough with Alice calling him and both of them trying to pretend they had never dated before. It was bad enough that Yugo found his mind wondering to who he could have married to end up with a child that looked like the one sleeping on his couch.  
  
There was an incessant burning on Yugo's throat. He tried to strangle it by rubbing on it but it would not go away. Sighing, Yugo gave up quickly and crawled into his bed. As he slept, he thought of all the different names he had thought of for a baby boy, as if he had a wife and she was going to have a baby soon.  
  
**  
"Are you going to tell me about yourself now?"  
  
"I can't. You haven't even named me yet."  
  
Yugo smiled graciously to have been given the spotlight. Over the few days, he had learned to appreciate a child's presence, whether the boy was a teenager or not. The child spent most of the day occupying himself with the books Yugo owned. The very next day the boy had begun studying Norse mythology. Every now and then, he would ask Yugo a question like, "Why did Freya have so many lovers?"  
  
"Back then, mythology was like entertainment. You know what soap operas are, right? Well, they're stories about certain characters who always have emotional problems and have to work on them slowly while crying and in angst all the time", Yugo would answer.  
  
"It's kind of odd how entertainment has become society's gods now. . ."  
  
Every question, Yugo was even happier to answer and give insightful advice back. Each time, the child would surprise him with one last sentence after Yugo's answer. It was odd that a child could give Yugo feedback that seemed so precoscious.  
  
"I settled for three names last night. . . But I think I've settled on Kenji. It's simple and Japanese. You are Japanese, right? You speak Japanese?"  
  
"Actually. . . I don't." Yugo's one look of interest goaded the child on. "I was born in this small northern region of Japan, a farming region you could say. We spoke a completely different dialect up there. The winters would get really cold, so we would barely open our mouths to speak and soon gained a whole language from it. It's called Zu-zu-ben. If your first language was Japanese, then I'm pretty sure you wouldn't understand me."  
  
"How'd you learn how to speak English?"  
  
"He taught me."  
  
Silence enveloped the two. Yugo had learned not to question about this "He", for Kenji would clam up and not speak to him for a whole afternoon. Yugo had already tried twice. By now, he let it go and allowed the child a moment to reflect silently on the man who used to own him, or so Yugo supposed. It had been a while since he had spent some time with Kenji without mentioning this "He". It seemed as though every second of the child's life revolved around this man.  
  
"Did you have parents?" Yugo asked without thinking.  
  
"Of course I did. Everyone has parents." Kenji lowered his head idly into the darkness as he mused calmly on Yugo's question. "Or do you mean something else? Are you asking me if I was raised by my parents?" Yugo nodded quickly, awaiting the answer with dire consequence. He should have never asked the question. If Kenji answered yes then Yugo wouldn't know what to do. He'd have to confide himself in trying to act exactly like Kenji's old parents.  
  
"No, I wasn't raised by my parents. I was never named, obviously. He took me to the laboratories as soon as he found me. . . when I was about two years old. He let me spend summers at my 'home' but I never really found the time to make friends or find my parents. The older villagers taught me how to harvest different crops but that was about it. After ten years, the management changed on the laboratories and then I was stuck in there all the time. I wasn't supposed to live past fifteen but I escaped."  
  
The snow fell quickly outside. Yugo could see it build up from the window he had. As his eyes fell upon the young child he had taken in, he realized that there was something incredibly wrong about the boy's whole exterior looks. Now that the child had his head pointed towards the light, Yugo could see the yellow that dominated brown in his irises. His smile faded into a taut small line and he felt as though the child knew what Yugo looked upon. The child's eyes widened past fish eyes and immediately, Kenji covered his face with his hand. It proved no good: Yugo spotted the fingernails which looked more like claws than any human nail.  
  
"So what exactly did they do to you at the laboratories?"  
  
Kenji barely peeked through his black claws. The small winsome smile that had once contaminated his face had been stolen. "You remember when there was that huge epidemic of a strange virus back in 2066? The only way to really save people from the disease was to give them this antibiotic. The people were cured but there was a small problem involved: the men and women who had taken the antibiotic had strange effects on them after they had been cured of the disease. They changed into monsters and eventually withered away in a society outside of the human race. Once all of the first generation had died, everyone thought they were safe. What they didn't know was that the effect of the antibiotics had somehow carried on into their children and their children's children.  
  
"That's when this 'natural selection' came in. They started collecting us and putting us in these little colonies, experimenting on us and eventually killing us before we could change into 'monsters'. That's why they call us 'expired children'. I've still got a year left. . . but already I-well. . ." Kenji held out his hands to Yugo showing off the claws and the light reflected the yellow in his eyes that had been taking over the soft brown irises. "They've been looking for a panacea but it's just not going to work. Not while I'm still alive, anyway. They'll probably find a cure after I'm dead and gone.  
  
"But don't worry. It's not as if I'm scared of changing or being dissected. I'm not mad at the scientists. . . I'm more angry at the virus. At least angry enough to question about it. Why did it come about in the first place? Where did it come from? And why did the antibiotics have such a strange effect on all of us? I never did like the colonies, though. They're dark and eerie and there's monstrous looking equipment all around. But the scariest thing is that they-"  
  
"Still keep the dead bodies of those who have changed in big tubes with blue liquid", Yugo finished. "I know."  
  
If Yugo had kept his gaze on Kenji, he would have seen an expression of shock like a lightning bolt had hit him. "How do you know?" the child hissed, throwing his claws in front of him. He could slice Yugo in half with those claws.  
  
"I really don't know how I know. The moment you mentioned the virus, it kind of clicked in my head. It's not like it matters if I know the interior layout of the laboratory, anyway. Listen, we need to leave soon and it's snowing outside. If you look in the closet to your far right, there's a few jackets in there. Find one that fits you. We're going to go out to the hospital."  
  
"Oh joy", Kenji muttered underneath his breath. Still, he obeyed like a good boy and grabbed a jacket that was too big for himself.  
  
**  
  
Technology surrounded him. He could smell it and he could feel it, all around him. The assistant at the sign in desk was using a computer, the woman right next to him was using her cell phone. Yugo was going to go insane. He could hear the young woman at the desk, tapping away. At each tap of the keyboard, Yugo twitched quickly. Sometimes he got chills, ranging from a small finger suddenly shivering for no reason to his whole shoulder shaking incessantly. Somehow Yugo had known he didn't want to take Kenji to the hospital but it was the right thing to do. What he wanted more than anything else though was to leave now.  
  
A young woman walked back into the hall, carrying a clipboard with her as she admired her nails. She stopped in front of the poor technophobic Yugo and smiled like he didn't look as though he just came out of a mental institution. "Mr. Ohgami", she screamed at the top of her lungs and searched the bleached white walls for anyone who would match the description for a name like "Ohgami".  
  
Yugo stood up before he had to hear her voice again and, just like in his younger years of schooling, called, "Here".  
  
"Ah, Mr. Oghami, if I could have you come this way, please." At least she was polite.  
  
Yugo followed her but kept his eyes away from the terrorizing smell of metal and technology as he passed each open white door. "I should explain to you", the young woman spoke calmly as she led Yugo, "of what happened when we tried to give your child his T.B. shot."  
  
"What did he do? What happened to him?" Yugo uttered without giving the woman space to speak.  
  
"Well, it's the funniest thing, really. I guess the little guy has a fear for shots or something. Has your child ever taken karate or any type of those Asian fighting arts you Japanese have?" She really wanted to get on Yugo's bad list. Yugo could stand for her oblivious ignorance but stereotyping was something Yugo did not take lightly.  
  
"If you could explain to me exactly what happened then I'm pretty sure that I could help you."  
  
"Well, because of your little Kenji, Dr. Bergman has a broken arm. He was about to give Kenji his T.B. shot and something happened. He just disappeared for a second and the next thing I knew, the doctor was crying in pain. Then he disappeared again. I was really scared for a minute, I swear- Mr. Oghami?"  
  
Yugo left the woman behind as he rushed over to the fourth room on the right. The doctor was sitting on a revolving chair, nursing his injured arm as an assistant tried to grab something inside of the medicine cabinets, underneath the white sink. The assistant ripped his arm out of the cabinet, holding it to his chest. Further investigation proved Yugo that the blood on the man's hands were from scratch marks.  
  
"Move", Yugo instructed the assistant and shoved him out of the way. Yugo fell to his knees and peered closely into the cabinet. With barely enough light, Yugo could see Kenji's yellow eyes flash brightly.  
  
"Kenji. What on earth are you doing there?" Yugo would have added extra words of anger were it not for the pure fear that rotated in Kenji's eyes. He hadn't gone to the hospital in over four years and then he had to come back only to get in trouble.  
  
"They tried to give me a shot!" the boy hissed virulently. "You never told me they were going to give me a shot! You told me they were going to weigh me then take my height and then other stuff but you never mentioned the word SHOT!"  
  
"I did too tell you that you were going to get a few shots. You just weren't listening to me and-shit. . . Kenji, look, just get out from under there, all right? We'll go home right now." Yugo prayed that would get the kid out of the cabinets. Last thing that he needed, besides a kid, was trouble with the hospital which would probably land him straight in the middle of a financial problem that he could never dig himself out of.  
  
"We'll go home?" Kenji asked in a testy voice.  
  
"Yes, we'll go home."  
  
Slowly, Kenji pulled himself out of the medicine cabinet and shook off the dust that had been hiding in there with him. As soon as one of his eyes fell to the doctor, he smiled viciously, leaving Dr. Bergman to quiver in fear. "Kenji", Yugo called to his child, "let's go home before I tear you to pieces."  
  
"Wait!" the doctor shrieked before Yugo could exit the door with Kenji in tow. "He needs to have his shots! Do you know what the world outside is like? It's full of viruses just waiting to kill little Kenji here. He needs his vaccinations!"  
  
"Dr. Bergman, do you want another broken arm?" The doctor didn't answer but still Yugo continued. "Then sod off."  
  
Yugo dragged Kenji through the halls not even thinking that he may have hurt the boy's arm. Kenji struggled against the confines on his arm, whimpering at the pain. Kenji tried scratching at Yugo's hand but it failed miserably. He even tried biting Yugo's hand off. Before he even knew it, Yugo had stopped and let go of Kenji's arm. Kenji clutched his bleeding arm closer to his body. He hadn't noticed Yugo puncture his arm but it still hurt terribly.  
  
"Kenji, I'm really sorry. . . I didn't realize that I made your arm bleed. I just get really. . . paranoid around technology. It makes me flip. Are you all right?" The voice that came out of Yugo's throat sounded as if it wanted to be caring but couldn't quite act as well as Yugo's eyes could. "Kenji? What happened back there?" Yugo placed one cold hand on Kenji's head and let if fall affectionatly to Kenji's warm cheek. Kenji rubbed his cheek into Yugo's tender gesture, almost forcing the man to completely pull his hand away from the boy's young face.  
  
"It's okay, Kenji. We're going to go back home. I'll never take you to a hospital ever again. I-" Yugo yipped loudly like a wolf before he could finish his sentence.  
  
The man who had bumped into Yugo was odd looking for an older man who may or may not have been working in the hospital. He pulled on his neon green goatee and grinned wickedly with the aura of a strange Rocky Horror Picture Show cast member floating about him. "Extremely sorry about that I am", he mumbled and giggled extatically. He walked over to the water fountain at the end of the hall, pretending as if he weren't eavesdropping.  
  
"As I was saying, Kenji-"  
  
"I know", Kenji muttered. His fear had slowly dwindled away inside of him ever since the older man had rammed into Yugo. "You know, I forgot to tell you since we got in the hospital. You look like shit, you know that?"  
  
"I love your direct approach to people, Kenji." Yugo ruffled the hair on Kenji's head before taking the child's arm and escorting him out of the hospital.  
  
The water fountain stopped flowing as soon as the push button was released. An older man who had been drinking water suddenly grinned like the cheshire cat and wrapped his coat tightly against his thin body. "Looks as though I may get a toy back, don't you think so you beautiful and handsome man you?" he cooed to his reflection in the water fountain. "Looks as though he may." 


	3. You've Got a Head in Your SoupSomething ...

Foreign  
  
A/N: Finally. Some well deserved gore. Well, a small scratch on Kenji's part. Gore will come a tad bit later. I don't really like how I wrote the portion between Yugo and Gado, just like I didn't like the hospital scene but I'm too lazy right now to fix it the way I want it to be. I'll just rewrite it someday and post the chapter up again. Other than that, following this will be the first side-story on Alice and Yugo spending a day together. It's to make up for the romance this story will never have. Anyway, lots of transition in here. Kind of boring.  
  
Chapter 3: You've Got a Head in Your Soup  
  
The weather had turned for a worst in the natural climate of winter. No one expects the snow to just lift off of the ground and fly away, though. No one really believes anything will occur. The weather is just the weather, something that man kind has never been able to adapt to even if they can say that they are evolved creatures, the biggest cord in the food cycle. It didn't seem right to think that human beings could be lesser than anything else. But they were. Something had come to take their place, something that did not look the least bit human.  
  
Child One knew. He knew it like he knew the back of his palm. He had been told over and over that the virus was not evil, the virus did not destroy mankind and the effects afterwards were not from the antibiotics. Usually he got his information from religious maniacs who entered the laboratory frequently just to rub some evidence of god in the scientist's faces. They never gave up. They never gave up a battle with science.  
  
It was cold to stay behind glass all day long and ponder on the meaning of life. He had only been at the laboratories for eleven years now and already he knew how he was going to be killed on his expiration date. On the days that Child One had been allowed outside of his "cage" and when he was granted permission to travel across the colonies, he would walk carefully through the computer labs until he made his way over to the extermination rooms. It would be one older or younger than he strapped to a chair while an assistant administered a long needle into the patient's arm. Next to the assistant, on a small tray, lay a bottle with the word cyanide written over the label.  
  
So that was the means of death. Poison. It seemed so simple. So simple to just grab that cyanide off of the tray and drink the whole bottle. Child One wasn't old enough to know what suicide exactly was. He thought of trying once or twice so he wouldn't have to worry in the future, so that he could die at a time that he felt appropriate. He snatched the bottle once. He grabbed it quickly and hid it in his cage. The only problem with his great and wonderful plan was that he never found a time in his life when he felt was appropriate to leave the living realm. It was too easy that Child One couldn't drink poison and die like everyone else.  
  
He found his way to the outside of the laboratories once. Behind the building was a backyard that bloomed exquisitely in the spring. The dead snow that usurped spring's abundance in winter was without existence during Child One's younger years. Child One loved the flowers out inside this wonderful garden. He loved everything of the humongous backyard. But there was only one catch: when he had walked out, none of the guards stopped to ask him where on earth Child One thought he was going. He pondered for minutes on this until he realized he had broken an azalea off from her stem. She lay face up on his palm, curling towards her center to a slow death.  
  
"There you are, Child." Child One had memorized His voice over the past years. Child One had memorized everything inside and out of Him, taking in only what interested a child's mind. Now that Child One thought back on Him, He seemed a lot like a Greek from the ancient civilizations. He had spent time and care on Child One, giving him gifts until Child One didn't bite Him every time He tried to interview the child. He had tried His best to gain Child One's acquiescing and in the end, Child One proved to be incredibly naive at thirteen.  
  
"I didn't mean to come here, honestly! I won't come back again, never again. I swear, I'll stay inside of the laboratories from now on as long as you don't punish me. Please, don't punish me. . ." Child One sounded as if he were whimpering; something the child would swear never to do at seven. Yet here he was, begging the man who had molded and crafted him not to punish him. As sad as it seemed to the boy, the laboratories really had broken him in.  
  
"I'm not angry at you", He murmured while His hand found its way to Child One's cheek. "You're so young. You have emotions that you can weld into a dagger or into a chain. It is a gift that only you have been given. All of the other children don't matter. It is only you I seek to examine. You are different from all of the others. . ." His hand fell to Child One's chin as he held it firmly into the light, inspecting the child's yellow within brown eyes. The man's lips moved slowly across Child One's forehead as the child's eyes widened in fear.  
  
Before Child One's mind registered his surroundings, a giant beast had pinned him to one of the garden walls, His claws dangerously close to the child's throat. "You're just like me", came the rumbled growl from His throat. "I would tell you that you expire when you're sixteen but I'd be lying for the first time to you. The truth is that you have no expiration date. You will not be dying any time soon, at least as long as I'm in charge of my laboratories."  
  
"Please, god. . ." Child One whispered hysterically. "Please, don't kill me, please don't kill me. . ." Child One didn't realize in his confusion that his fingernails had been growing. They were not like fingernails in any form though; they were long, black, and glossy fingernails but much sharper than a human's own canine teeth.  
  
The man placed one claw effortlessly on Child One's cheek as it slowly rouged from this new treatment. His furry face came closer to the child's, leaving only one option only. For a while now, the child's arms had been resting by his sides. The man did nothing to keep them away and Child One's anger had grown over his seconds of helplessness. In one deft movement, the child's claws had sunk into His face and tore vertically across skin and bone.  
  
Child One was dropped so quickly his head was teetering with darkness, near unconsciousness. He was able to keep awake; no matter how many times his head started to fall forward and no matter how many times his eyes tried to blank out on him. He could barely see the man, shriveled into a ball of pain. If his vision served him correctly, the man was now getting up, his eyes turned to a deep crimson, and walking towards Child One.  
  
"You son of a bitch", he snarled and sunk his carnivorous teeth into Child One's shoulder. Child One seethed a shrill scream between his teeth as he bit down so hard on his tongue, he could taste the salty trail of blood in his mouth. The man let go for a second's haste, enough time for Child One to will his legs into movement and run clear across the garden. He clutched his imbrued shoulder but soon tore his hand away; it only gave him more pain to deal with.  
  
The child stumbled across mathematically placed bushes, probably made just for this moment knowing that with one fault in his movements would be the death of him. Child One fell squarely on his knees and couldn't get up for the pain he felt throughout all of his body; his muscles itched terribly while they struggled to recover. As soon as he was able to turn his head in the direction of the monster, he could feel death knocking at his door: the monster, his master, the man who had raised Child One his entire life, raised one large clawed hand to deal a death blow.  
  
Child One held up his own gigantic black claws, ready to inflict the same damage he had beforehand. With His other hand, the monster grabbed Child One's hand and twisted it until the child heard a loud wet snap in his wrist. It was the beginning of the end; Child One's eyes closed and his body stopped moving. He had fallen unconscious but his body would still end up being desecrated by the man he trusted most.  
**  
Kenji woke up swiftly, without a moments haste to reflect on his first nightmare. He found himself whispering that it only was a dream but inside, Kenji remembered the incident vividly. He remembered the feel of teeth crushing his muscles and bones, the pain of loosing all feeling in his hand. Only for verification, Kenji flexed his wrist. He could still feel the pain as it popped dreadfully each time. He dug his other hand underneath his shirt and felt the deep scars on his shoulder that would never fully heal. Neither of his traumas would ever ameliorate but Kenji was not so worried about the physical wounds.  
  
For a second, he could believe he was a contortionist and cave in on his body underneath his blanket, wishing that the pain in all of this twisting and turning would somehow rid him of the memories he had. Kenji wished to be with someone he knew and this was few; Kenji's acquaintances only included three people, two of which he cared about slightly.  
  
Kenji appreciated Yugo's help. It was not as if Kenji cared deeply for the older man (he had only been with Yugo for three days now) but he did like the companionship that seemed to follow. Yugo had saved Kenji, though. He had saved Kenji and tried his best to get the boy into school and stay healthy. He could not say that Yugo's help had been in vain or that he didn't like Yugo. His master had always told Kenji that He wouldn't help other children unless they helped Him in return. Yugo had helped Kenji without the slightest hesitation and didn't seem to expect anything out of the child.  
  
The other person Kenji had known was Child Two. He had made a promise to her and he couldn't seem to keep it. Child Two had been the only other kid Kenji was allowed to play with. They were childhood friends until Kenji made it clear to her that he was going to escape sometime soon. That's when she asked him if he would take her. So Kenji promised Child Two that once he was outside of the laboratories, he would come back and help her. Yet he had spent three days with good food and a warm place to sleep and not once had he thought about Child Two until this sudden second.  
  
Child Two had been completely different from Kenji. She had picked her own name right from the start. She had grabbed him by the shoulders and told him, "You will never call me Child Two ever again! My name is now Shaniqua!" And although Child Two had picked her own name, Kenji couldn't help but express his criticism on it. He told her that people wouldn't be able to pronounce it to which Child Two hit him in the chest for. Kenji's eyes fondled the red glaze of the one alarm clock in the entire house, loud enough to wake up the dead: it read 2:45. He wondered exactly what "Shaniqua" was doing at this hour.  
  
Kenji put his legs out over the couch but he hadn't counted on what position he might have been in from his curling movements on his so-called bed. With a strangled yelp, he fell over completely and didn't move until the embarrassment passed. He sat up quickly and didn't realize that his eyes had fallen upon the picture of Yugo's old friend, Alice. He silently recalled Yugo proclaiming that she wasn't his girlfriend. So. . . If she wasn't his girlfriend, why did he still have her picture around? It seemed silly to keep a picture of someone Yugo had broken up with.  
  
When Yugo had held a hand to Kenji's cheek in comfort, he had nuzzled his cheek into Yugo's palm on purpose. Yugo must have cupped Alice's cheeks many times in the same type of affection: there was care inside of the touch, but not real care. Not care as in love for one person but a care for someone's well-being. Alice must have nuzzled her cheek into Yugo's palm, too. That's why Yugo had almost backed away from Kenji.  
  
It was a gesture of kindness on Kenji's part to give back comfort to those who gave it willingly. So then this Alice gave back pure love when she tried her best to please Yugo. Maybe, after Kenji liberated Child Two from the laboratories, he could meet Alice. She smiled so sweetly in the picture, something Kenji had never really seen inside of a human being before. But the problem at true hand was Child Two.  
  
Kenji made his way to Yugo's bedroom, making sure he didn't catch a glimpse of anymore pictures to ponder on. Slowly, Kenji approached the sleeping Yugo. "Yugo", he whispered, shaking the older man. No response came. It was as if he were comatose.  
  
"Yugo!" he called a little louder and shook harder. Yugo barely flicked his hand at Kenji's face. It was a stupid move though with a child who had carnivorous teeth instead of a human's blunt chewing teeth. Kenji bit down as hard as he could on Yugo's hand. Yugo could have been in a coma for all Kenji knew and he had a mission to save his old friend. Why couldn't they start now?  
  
A river of strange tasting salt entered Kenji's mouth. In panic, he let go of Yugo's hand and tried to spit out all of the blood that contaminated his mouth. He scratched at his tongue with his claws, creating more blood in his mouth then he had intended. In Kenji's panic, he hadn't realized that one strand of his hair had fallen and flew down slowly in the air until it landed on Yugo's head. Instantly, Yugo was awake.  
  
"What- oh, crap", Yugo muttered and tried to wrap his hand in his covers.  
  
"I'll make up for it!" Kenji cried. "Let me make you breakfast, right now. Just give me a second-"  
  
"Kenji . . . what time is it?" Yugo muttered, obviously annoyed.  
  
"By now . . . about three in the morning."  
  
"Three in the morning, eh? Why don't you just go back to sleep. God, this is just like the orphanage when Phineus would wake me up every two minutes. . ."  
  
"I can't!" Kenji hissed and slammed his hands on Yugo's comforter. "It's imperative that I save a friend because I made a promise to her and if I break her promise then the next time she sees me she's going to ram me into a wall and crack my head open for dinner, you understand?"  
  
"So you wake me up at three in the morning for girl trouble. All right, Kenji. Who is she and how do you expect to get her attention?"  
  
"How many times do I have to tell you? She's not my GIRLFRIEND!"  
  
Kenji didn't take in part that his voice may have been too loud for comfort. No banter came from Yugo's lips as a few minutes passed after Kenji's rage. "Yugo, she's my friend and I want to help her and I need your help. Is that so much to ask for? Now if you don't want to help me, there is a phone number written behind a picture of a girl you know well. I will use that phone number, Yugo."  
  
"You fool! Do you know what you're doing? If you call Alice now and tell her what's going on, what makes you think she isn't going to do what's right and tell the authorities that I have an under-age child living under my roof and that he is personal property of a science program that I stole?"  
  
"Well if you help me then I guess we won't have to find out, now will we?" Yugo looked as though he would strangle Kenji but he seemed to dull his anger in the pain of his hand.  
  
"Kenji, can we please do this some other time? I've got someone I need to meet in the morning. You can have your little crusade tomorrow night or something just let me get my sleep!" Kenji was taken aback. He shook his head to get the words out of his ears.  
  
"How can you have someone you need to meet? The only people you know are me and Alice."  
  
"I have one other friend out there in the misty woods called a social life. Not that I'm the most social person in the world. . . You're right about that, though. I only know few people so just let me have tomorrow morning with an old friend and then you can do whatever you want to do. I need you to stay here and be good, you understand? You're going to be here all by yourself for the first time", Yugo pleaded.  
  
Kenji kept his eyes on his toes. He couldn't believe that he had been selfish for a flight of time. Surely Yugo must have something he needs to do on his own. He can't have time for little Kenji every day and every hour. Not like the scientists who had put Kenji in the center of their universe and spent hours just studying what type of food he preferred. Yugo had other people out in the world where Kenji did not.  
  
Once Kenji regained his sense, he brought his gaze to Yugo's bitten and bleeding hand. "Does it hurt?" he asked underneath a whisper.  
  
"Yes. You've got some sharp teeth there." Yugo tried to wipe some of the blood away on his comforter. Kenji had never wished to harm the man who had provided life for the boy when he thought he was going to die.  
  
Without an actual conversation between him and his common sense, Kenji barely placed his lips on the wound and quickly wiped the blood away from his mouth. "My friend told me that if you want something to heal then you kiss it", he prattled incoherently, praying that Yugo wouldn't think him to be a strange and disgusting child.  
  
To Kenji's surprise, Yugo smiled warmly and finally crawled out of his bed. "Now that I'm up, we may as well have breakfast. . ." Kenji's yellow eyes lit up like lanterns and he rushed out of the room, headed straight for the small and dirty kitchen Yugo owned.  
  
Kenji had already set up the whole table and all the contents that would usually be seen on any other family's breakfast table. He had already poured two bowls of cereal and drowned them in milk when Yugo came down the stairs, hindered more by his groggy morning attitude than the darkness. Kenji placed down spoons and sat down in his chair, looking to Yugo expectantly. Had Kenji been a puppy, Yugo believed he would have seen a little tail wagging as fast as it could go.  
  
"I thought you said you were going to make breakfast", Yugo criticized. "Like make a waffle or make some eggs."  
  
"I made you a bowl of cereal. Isn't that enough?" Quite frankly, Yugo couldn't argue. No one had ever poured a bowl of cereal for him, as stupid as it sounded. He wasn't used to some stranger giving him food for consideration in his health. It slowly dawned upon Yugo that this child might actually care about him. That made thinking of giving him up to one of the schools even harder to imagine.  
  
Yugo could not dismiss the nuzzle he'd gotten just the other day. He hadn't been nuzzled since. . . Well, to say the least, he had never been nuzzled before in his life. Even when he and Alice had gone out places, a quick pat to her cheek and immediately her arms would be around him as she repeated to him what trouble Phineus had been up to. Thinking about Phineus had reminded Yugo of just how incredibly tired he was. Without further wait, Yugo placed his head into the cereal bowl.  
  
A few bubbles of air popped out in the open atmosphere to which Kenji replied, "Yugo, you're supposed to eat it."  
  
***  
  
Yugo paced across the much bigger living room as he waited impatiently. Actually, he was worried to the biggest degree any mathematician could think of. He left Kenji alone with the words, "Be good", like Kenji was more of a dog than a child. He told Kenji where all the food was located and who to call if an emergency happened . . . even though he did not want the kid to meet Alice without introducing them first.  
  
He should have never left Kenji alone. Maybe he had enough time to go back and pick him up and-  
  
"Yugo, I haven't seen you in a long time." Yugo spun around at the familiar voice. It was funny how a familiar face could wash away all of Yugo's concerns in less than five seconds. "And yet you grow without me."  
  
"Uncle Gado!" Yugo yipped ecstatically. He pummeled into the tall French man and hugged him dearly. Quickly, Gado detached Yugo and patted his shoulders in a mature fashion.  
  
"You're going to scare people off, hugging me like that. It may have been fine when you were much younger but by now people will stare", Gado advised sternly. This was the first man Yugo had ever known in his existence. Gado was his role model, his savior, and (more importantly) his Uncle Gado.  
  
"Can I at least still call you Uncle Gado?" Gado nodded in acquiesce. Yugo was bounding with so much joy; he didn't know what to explain to Gado first: the days he had spent in the orphanage with all of the other annoying kids, his short-lived days with Alice and enjoying a woman's company for the first time, or the child he had just taken in and named. He smiled pitifully, trying to think of some topic to pick up on, some topic that Gado could find universally interesting and believe that he did a good job taking care of Yugo as a little child of ten.  
  
"Oh, Gado I have so many things to tell you. . . I don't even know where to begin. I grew up in the orphanage with so many other little kids that I just couldn't stand it and there was this boy named Phineus who always picked on me and wouldn't let me sleep and then there was Alice and she and I used to date because we thought we could trust each other but then we broke up because we thought of each other as brother and sister and then I found this boy-"  
  
"Slow down, Yugo, slow down. . . There will be a time for you to tell me everything. But right now, why don't you sit down, eh?" Quickly, Yugo sat down and grinned sheepishly, hoping Gado didn't hate him for the rest of his life because he had to babble and Gado didn't like babbling . . . shit, and he was even think-babbling! Yugo hated babbling because he just wasn't the person to do it unless he was excited and he could never contain his excitement.  
  
"Wait, no, this is really important!" Yugo's tone of emergency had already caught one of Gado's slit feline eyes. "I found this boy who didn't have a name so I had to name him. He told me he was an expired child and that he had escaped so I took him in and now he's living in my house. Actually, he told me quite a lot yesterday. He said that he came from a farming community", Gado's eyes dilated so quickly that his pupils became round once more, "and that he was raised by this 'He' guy. And now I'm going to try and send him off to school but he's really a cute little guy and I think I'm getting these fatherly feelings where I want to keep him as my own child, no matter how foul his mouth is."  
  
"A farming community, you say?" Gado ventured before Yugo could continue. "A farming community where they spoke Zu-zu-ben?"  
  
"Well . . . yeah. Why? Do you know a child like that?"  
  
"Yugo. . ." Gado seemed to be searching for a way to explain his next few words. Yugo stayed intent to keep watch on every facial feature; he had spent so much time when he was a little kid with Gado that he knew what facial expressions meant he was lying. "There is something . . . a little different about the farming community up north. You see, at the time, they were being oppressed by warlords, daimyos, the whole kit and caboodle because what they grew was so important and everyone around them didn't want to pay the exact price. What was even worse was when bandits would come by and steal all of their food. They couldn't complain to anyone; everyone else was waiting for their crops. So, they started training themselves. Eventually, they came to be known as the fairytale term, 'Ninjas'."  
  
"So. . ." Yugo giggled, "Are you trying to tell me that Kenji is a ninja? Is that it? He's going to blend in with the trees and then turn into smoke while I'm not looking? Gado, sometimes you tell the funniest stories, I swear. . . No, Kenji is a child. He couldn't hurt anyone."  
  
He couldn't hurt anyone, repeated his mind. But deep inside of Yugo's cranium, he recalled a time when he had not know the child as Kenji. When the child had sat on his couch with a humongous black jacket on his slim frame and was covered in blood. Kenji had been soaked in blood and yet he still looked up to Yugo as if he were a happy young child with nothing else to do but look innocent. The blood had carefully slipped from Kenji's cheek as he smiled even wider.  
  
"It's not my blood", he snapped back to Yugo's earlier comment about soaking his couch with blood. He had seen Kenji's claws covered with blood once, since the incident in the doctor's office. It was just a miniscule of a second but Yugo had seen the crimson blood contaminate Kenji's fingers just as it had when he watched the boy sleep on the first night; slowly watch the blood dry in the child's hair until Yugo was so disgusted that he started to pick out little bits and pieces. Was Kenji really and truly innocent?  
  
"Yugo, I've been around him much longer than you have." Gado had slipped so badly that Yugo could see the sudden surprise in his eyes from the information he had just given.  
  
"Uncle Gado", Yugo reassured, "Kenji lived in the laboratories for almost all of his life. You were taking care of me. How could you be in two different places at once? Well . . . assuming that Kenji is ten years younger than I am, I guess he wasn't in the laboratories at that time. But you never worked in the laboratories, right Uncle Gado? You never actually went there or spent time working there, did you?" Yugo scratched at the back of his neck. He thought back to a time when his neck used to itch day and night and then suddenly it stopped. So why was it itching again?  
  
"Yugo, why don't you give this child to me? I could take care of him for you." Gado looked more and more distant that Yugo had ever seen him. Yugo got up from his chair and backed away closer to the front door. Something was clearly not right with Uncle Gado.  
  
"That's okay, Uncle Gado. Actually, I have to get going now. I don't want to leave Kenji alone for too long. You never know what children will do when you're gone. Sorry we couldn't talk for longer but-"  
  
"Tell me Yugo", Gado began quizzically. "Do you recall the first ten years of your life?"  
  
Yugo became silent with thought. The first memory he had in life was when Gado had taken his hand and told him that he would be free in the outside world. Then Gado had taken him in for a year and transferred Yugo to the orphanage. Other than those memories, Yugo couldn't find any more information on his childhood. "Now that I think about it. . . I don't remember anything other than you taking me in."  
  
"I'm only doing this for your best interest, Yugo." Gado pulled a plastic container out of his jacket and opened it, revealing a small disk that could be used on a computer. "All you have to do is put this into a computer and you will have loaded the most important portions of your first ten years alive. If you bring Kenji to the laboratories tonight, I will give you the disk."  
  
To get those ten years, Yugo would transcend his fear of computers just to watch what happened in his life that he didn't know about. He had only had Kenji for four days now and the boy wasn't that attached to Yugo, now was he? Besides, when Kenji talked about the laboratories he didn't seem to make it look as though it were that bad. Yugo had even planned with the boy to save his friend. But Kenji was free now and he seemed so happy to make breakfast for Yugo and wake him up at three in the morning. . .  
  
"I'll think about it", Yugo answered. Yugo turned around again and started for the door, in much need of the cold winter air than the stuffy confines of Gado's old house. At least the snow couldn't ask or tell him what to do.  
  
"Yugo." He barely turned his head around just to meet Gado's eyes. Those were eyes that he had trusted for more than fifteen years. "I hope you make the right choice."  
  
Yugo smiled weakly before muttering, "I hope I do, too", and walked out the door. **  
  
It was nauseatingly boring stuck in Yugo's house without anything important to do. Kenji had spent better days with Child Two torturing him as she tried to "play". The house was so barren that any form of entertainment could only come from the shadow puppets Kenji created on the small window curtains. He was bored, completely out of his mind. So what was an expired child supposed to do to get any fun around here?  
  
Kenji was sick with Yugo's little technophobia stage; he really thought it was one of those mid-life crisis things adults have. Maybe Yugo was so afraid of ending up dependant on technology that he forced himself to fear all things new. "What a baby . . ." Kenji murmured to the black painted walls. And who painted their walls black, anyway? Yugo wasn't one of those goth-people, was he?  
  
The pros that occurred in the afternoon were the silence and quality time alone Kenji was offered. He took them up wisely, spending an hour just looking all throughout the house. Kenji was used to the living room and the kitchen; he had been there many times and had asked Yugo once if he could take up the bed and Yugo could sleep on the couch (To which Kenji is still trying to heal his ears for). Yugo's room was a mess but Kenji had expected that. Yugo looked like a person who couldn't keep his thoughts or room well- kempt. Kenji had also been in the bathroom before.  
  
But Kenji had never gone into the backyard. His lingering curiosity had settled on the snow-covered backyard with a small fence and the little birds that sat idly on the tree Kenji had first been found on. Maybe Kenji had been there before . . . He had never been there in a way he would have liked. The boy had to lock his straying thoughts away before he went back to the living room, pondering on what he could keep his attention span on.  
  
Expecting that no one was watching him, Kenji smiled as if he were a ruthless villain. He hadn't practiced in a long time; maybe he was a little rusty. He had gotten enough food over the days to pay for the times when he would go all day without eating just to anger the scientists. He could pull it off; he assured his mind over and over. It was a piece of cake, anyone could do it.  
  
Placing himself in the center of the living room, Kenji swallowed what saliva was still in his mouth. He leaped into the air, falling into a back flip and landed upon his bare hands and feet. As he lay on the floor, the child gazed at his slim fingers, holding him above the ground, with a grotesque smile appearing between his cheeks. Kenji laughed with a pure adrenaline pulsing happiness. In an attempt to make up for the last three years, Kenji rolled across the floor in a cartwheel until he fell in front of the couch. He leaped into the air, falling back onto his feet with a small stumble.  
  
This was paradise. This was what some of the religious men talked about. The ever-flowing river of youth rested inside his cheeks as he stretched his neck left and right, then shook out his arms. Finally, he scratched the back of his neck in an attempt to rid the small, incessant itch. "What would even be better . . ." Kenji uttered. Without finishing his sentence, he regarded the snow in he backyard, a hint of the childish will to play creeping onto his mischievous face.  
  
Soon, Kenji was outside in the snow, tumbling across the white, painful ground. He had never known cold such as the fever of snow but he preferred to feel the sensation than sit inside and wonder exactly what that white blob was. He wished against his health that Child Two could see snow like this. She would adore the snow; she had more of a winsome spirit than Kenji could even pretend to own. He remembered days he had spent with Child Two fondly but he adored his days with Yugo more. It felt odd, he had only spent four days with Yugo and yet he could say that he appreciated Yugo's company over a child his own age.  
  
Something was fairly odd inside of Kenji. He could feel it every now and then in the snow, when his heart would skip a beat and he couldn't breath properly. Whatever it was, it hurt terribly. Kenji kneeled on the snow, his bright amber eyes catching the tree he had once leaned on in exhaust. There was a hole inside of the tree, right in the middle and it would glow every second Kenji's heart beat skipped with an evanescent light, dwindling in the sun's retirement from the sky.  
  
With a disintegrating interest, Kenji moved forward on his frozen knees over to the tree. Just being in the presence of this tree again was a bizarre occurrence on its own. But how could this salty smell of the ocean exude from the tree when Kenji was in the snow-covered hell of Japan?  
  
"What are you doing outside, Kenji?"  
  
The pain inside of Kenji stopped aching. He spun around and smiled like Yugo were the world above where angels roamed. He leaped into Yugo's arms as the older man scrambled to keep his hands on the child's back. Contradictory to the pain Yugo had in his back from catching Kenji, the child kissed the tip of his nose so softly it almost made Yugo believe Kenji's previous words: kissing heals a wound.  
  
"Now that you're back, can we go find my friend? I know how to get to the laboratories from here. I did escape from there and come here anyway."  
  
"D-did you . . ."  
  
Kenji ceased to speak, listening intently to Yugo even if his words wouldn't come out as clearly as he had planned. Yugo gave up, staring into Kenji's wide luminescent yellow eyes. He wasn't used to children staring at him so affectionately. The last few words he had planned were ditched in the back of his mind. Instead, he settled for something else that wouldn't disappoint the child or encourage him.  
  
"Did you speak to Alice today or something kid?" He chuckled nervously afterwards.  
  
"I've never spoken to her in my life. You said we'd meet her after we went to go get Child Two. Why do you ask?"  
  
"Nothing, really. It's nothing at all." Yugo's mind did not agree with him. Yugo's mind remembered a time when Alice had ran into his arms and kissed the tip of his nose while Yugo spun her around wildly. Her hair was free and she looked so natural but Yugo had been a teenager then. He didn't know anything about the relationship he and Alice should have had or what he really was supposed to do in a boyfriend/girlfriend situation. "You just reminded me of something when I was much younger . . . Just a child like you."  
  
Yugo eyed the backyard, placing Kenji on the snow. "I bought you a few new clothes so that you don't have to wear that blood-soaked shirt anymore."  
  
"You're kidding me, you bought me clothes?" Kenji smiled delicately, as if hinting something entirely surreptitious underneath. "How sweet of you. I hope they actually fit unlike the clothes the scientists gave me."  
  
"I got you a turtleneck so you can suffocate yourself." A sweet laughter arose from Kenji's throat, just like the last time Yugo make a joke, only this time, Yugo was allowed to hear it for a longer period of time. "Come on inside and change. It's awful cold out here."  
  
Without a word, Kenji followed Yugo to the inside of the house. The child raced to keep up with Yugo and slung his arm around the older man's upper arm. Kenji nuzzled his nose into Yugo's clothes; a hint of revelation decorated Yugo's scarred face. This really was his child. When Yugo had pondered for hours during the night, he had often thought that Kenji's parents were somewhere in this world and that he had to return the boy to them. Deep inside, Yugo fought with his fatherly instincts and said that Kenji must go to school. Kenji must live somewhere else. But Yugo fought just as dearly and told his mind that he could keep the child as his if he could make a little more money.  
  
Yugo had spent most of his educating years reading about Hinduism, which he had found almost as intriguing as Uncle Gado's old cold exterior. He had read about Karma and destiny. He had recited to Alice that they both had to loose all attachment to the consequences of their actions but neither of them could actually do so. And Yugo gave up on Hinduism. Until today, that is.  
  
Today, he apprehended that Kenji had lost his parents. Kenji had gotten out of the laboratories by his own strength. And by destiny, Kenji had found his way to Yugo's house. Yugo had taken care of the child, he had fathered a child until he understood that he would have to give Kenji up to someone because he lacked any professional skill to speak of. Just because Yugo wasn't experienced didn't mean that he couldn't learn how to take care of a boy. This child, by a twist of uncertain fate, was now his own and he had to learn to keep the child or something terrible might happen to Kenji.  
  
Apparently, Yugo had made his choice.  
  
As soon as Kenji was done dressing in the bathroom, he scratched at his neck with a crazed interest. Yugo would have stopped him and say that turtlenecks often give people rashes, but it was just too funny to let a sliver of a word out of his mouth. As if he were telepathic, Kenji glared sternly at Yugo and gave up scratching with a taciturn, "You try wearing a turtleneck for the first time . . . "  
  
"Can I keep this?" Yugo asked while holding up the blood-stained shirt Kenji had once been confined in. Kenji shrugged indifferently as an expression of submission and Yugo balled the shirt up, placing it in a small knapsack.  
  
"What are you going to do with it?"  
  
Yugo's eyes peered intently at Kenji, inspecting the child slowly. For a brief second, he smiled like he had once done with Alice: a faint recognition of happiness goaded by the sight of a being well appreciated in presence. Yugo stood up from his knees and threw the knapsack over his shoulder. "Well, are we going to help your friend or not?"  
  
"You really mean it?" Kenji yipped buoyantly.  
  
"Lead the way." Kenji left his back to Yugo and marched over to the front door. He was too far away to hear Yugo grumble, "Forgive me, Kenji." He pulled out two taut pieces of rope, and underneath the couch, one gigantic bag like Yugo were Santa Claus.  
  
"Well Yugo, are you coming or-"  
  
Yugo rammed Kenji's head into the wall, the child disoriented for two seconds. It was enough time for Yugo to promptly tie secure knots around Kenji's wrists and ankles. Kenji would have cracked his head on the floor had Yugo not caught him. "Yugo, what on earth-"Kenji tried to begin but Yugo tied a gag around his child's mouth. With a few finishing touches, Yugo had Kenji inside of the bag and he tied the top of the bag and threw it over his shoulder along with the knapsack.  
  
"Kenji, I know you said you wanted to meet Alice after we found your friend but I guess it's just going to happen much earlier", he mumbled before making his way out of the door. 


End file.
